Question of the Day

Whose side of the story do you believe?

Bomb threat diverts Florida-bound flightLONDON A passenger jet flying from London to Orlando, Fla., with 340 persons on board was diverted to Iceland yesterday after the crew found a bomb threat and anti-American messages scrawled on a bathroom mirror in soap.A spokesman for Virgin Atlantic Airways said the threat seemed to be a fake.The Boeing 747 landed safely at Keflavik airport, 30 miles southwest of the Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, about six hours after it took off from London's Gatwick airport.The flight's passengers are being kept overnight for questioning in an attempt to find the author of the message.

British legislators seek talk on prisonersLONDON British members of Parliament yesterday called for a meeting with the U.S. ambassador and urged the government to make a clear statement in response to growing concerns about the treatment of al Qaeda suspects, including three Britons, held at an U.S. detention center in Cuba.The cross-party Parliamentary Human Rights Committee said it was lobbying for a meeting with the U.S. ambassador to London, William Farish, over fears that the 110 detainees held at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay are being kept in inhumane conditions.

Castro's brother peers at U.S. baseGUANTANAMO, Cuba Gen. Raul Castro, Fidel Castro's younger brother and Cuba's defense minister, looked out yesterday over the U.S. naval base where prisoners from the war in Afghanistan are being held."Relations with the United States are unpredictable," Mr. Castro told a small group of international journalists at the Malones lookout. It has a spectacular panorama of the American installation in southeastern Cuba.He said for now the Cuban government would not object to the use of the base to hold the prisoners even though for decades Havana has protested the American presence.

General: Russia, U.S. want formal arms pactMOSCOW A top Russian disarmament negotiator said yesterday that both Moscow and Washington now agree that a formal pact is needed on cutting strategic nuclear arsenals.Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, speaking to the Interfax news agency after returning from fresh talks in Washington, also said any accord should place restrictions on the missile shield Washington intends to build.He said both sides wanted an agreement completed ahead of a proposed visit to Moscow later this year by President Bush.

London to evacuate Britons from ZimbabweLONDON The British government is drawing up plans to airlift more than 25,000 British passport holders from its former colony of Zimbabwe, where political violence and a clampdown against the opposition and media continues ahead of presidential elections, the Sunday Telegraph said.The weekly said that Foreign Secretary Jack Straw last month ordered an emergency planning committee to finalize plans for a mass evacuation from the southern African country.It comes after South Africa on Friday said it had drawn up similar plans, involving the army, to take in refugees from its neighbor if violence erupts in Zimbabwe around the elections set for March 9-10.